This invention relates to cancer diagnostics and therapeutics.
Carcinomas, the malignant tumors arising from epithelial cells, constitute the majority of human cancers. In nearly all cases, the precise etiology of epithelial cancers is unknown, but multiple etiological agents, including radiation, viruses, carcinogens, and dietary factors (Farber, Cancer Res. 44: 4217-4223, 1984), are thought to alter common cellular pathways resulting in uncontrolled growth, a hallmark of the tumorigenic process.
The carcinogenic potential of radiation in humans was realized within the first decade after the discovery of X-rays by Roentgen in 1895 (Hall, Radiobiology for the Radiologist, 3d ed., J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1988), and this was confirmed in later years through epidemiologic studies of the survivors of atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Tokunaga et al., Rad. Res. 138: 209-223, 1994). These data provided evidence that various forms of neoplasia, including breast cancer, represent a significant late effect in human populations exposed to ionizing radiation. Strong evidence for the role of fractionated radiation in breast cancer was also provided by studies on women who received radiation for treatment of breast cancer or pulmonary tuberculosis (Boice et al., New Eng. J. Med. 326: 781-785, 1992; Boice et al., Radiat. Res. 125: 214-222, 1991). As a result of these types of studies, the Bier Committees ranked female breast tissue as having a high relative sensitivity to radiation-induced oncogenesis (Beir, Report In: Health Effects of Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation. National Research Council, pp. 1-421, 1990).
Currently, breast carcinomas are one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths of women in North America and Europe. About 180,000 new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed every year in the United States, and it is estimated that one out of every eight women will develop breast cancer during her lifetime.